The battle for Scotland’s anti-Tory vote between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon became bitter and personal on Wednesday evening after the Labour leader accused Sturgeon of “being willing to usher in another heartless Conservative government”.
The two clashed on Twitter after Corbyn’s two-day campaigning visit to Scotland got off to a rocky start, when he had tied himself in knots over Labour’s referendum policy.
He first ruled out backing one for a full five-year term, before retracting that after being corrected by his aides to say Labour would not support one for the first few years. He simultaneously rejected Sturgeon’s calls for a “progressive alliance” to defeat the Tories, insisting it was “their choice” whether to back Labour or allow the Tories to regain power.
Sturgeon retorted that Scottish National party MPs would only support a minority Labour government if it allowed Holyrood to stage a fresh independence referendum at a time of its choosing. Sturgeon wants one next year.
Corbyn retaliated by tweeting back footage from 1979, when SNP support for a vote of no confidence helped topple James Callaghan’s Labour government, allowing Margaret Thatcher to win her first general election and heralding 18 years of Tory government.
The SNP leader hit back by accusing Corbyn of “desperate stuff”, pointing out she was in primary school in 1979.
The SNP had tabled a no-confidence motion after Callaghan’s government decided not to introduce devolution to Scotland as the 1979 devolution referendum required 40% of all Scotland’s voters to say yes. After a low turnout, that threshold was not met.
With backing too from the Liberal party, Thatcher tabled an early day motion stating the house had no confidence in Callaghan’s government which went to a vote. Along with unionist MPs from Northern Ireland, the SNP’s 11 MPs voted against Labour, which lost the motion by one vote.
Those events are engrained in Labour folklore as proof of the SNP’s dishonesty about opposing the Tories. With the polls showing Labour support as low as 12% in Scotland, they face another wipeout on 12 December and are desperately trying to mobilise disillusioned and apathetic Labour voters.
Scottish Labour’s Facebook page features film of Ian Lavery, the party chairman and a former National Union of Mineworkers president, insisting a minority Labour government would challenge the SNP to vote down its budget, including £70bn extra spending for Scotland, rather than agree a deal.
He concluded: “Let the SNP decide whether they want to accept that or not. Let them decide whether they want to stick their fingers up at the Scottish people.”